36: A Novel (7 page)

“Anything else I need to know?”  I asked as the interior door clanged open.

“Come back for me.  Please, Bob!  Don’t leave me here!” 

The guard had walked into the room and began shouting at Tim, gesturing at the open door with his billy club.

“I’ll be back for you,” I said as the guard grabbed his shoulder and propelled him away from me.  “I promise.”

I watched him disappear through the door, the guard still yelling.  When it slammed shut, I let out the breath I’d been using to contain my anger.  Turning, I pounded on the exterior door.  There wasn’t an immediate response so after half a minute I pounded again.  I was getting pretty worried, five minutes later, when I finally heard the sound of a key scrape in the lock.

The door was yanked open and the guard sergeant stood blocking my exit to freedom with his bulk.  I stepped closer, wanting out of that room nearly as much as I’ve ever wanted anything, but he didn’t budge.  Just held his hand out and smiled.

With a sigh, I reached into my pocket and thumbed five more twenties off the rapidly shrinking roll of cash.  I did it so he couldn’t see how much I had.  When I held it out, the money disappeared as neatly as the first hundred I’d given him and he stepped to the side and made a grand sweeping gesture for me to exit.

I walked through, keeping a close watch on the club tightly gripped in his hand.  If he started to swing, I was going to fight.  The odds weren’t good that I’d be able to overpower him and make it out of the prison’s gate, but I wasn’t going to willfully submit to a beat down either.

The air was hot and dusty and heavy with the stink of rotting garbage when I walked through the gate, but after being inside the prison it tasted as sweet as a mountain meadow in spring.  Behind me, I could hear the low roar of the prisoners going about their daily business within the high walls.  A voice rose above the babble, screaming in pain, and it took all of my self control to not turn and look.  I just wanted the fuck away from this place.

Half a block from the prison I saw two ancient Chevy pickups parked at the curb.  Their drivers were sitting on the lowered tailgate of the one in back, smoking and talking.  The two trucks were as much rust as not, but all I cared about was that
Taxi
had been crudely hand lettered in black paint on their doors.

“Pink Pussy,” I said, walking up to the two men and holding a single twenty up for them to see.

One of them leapt down and dashed forward, smiling, reaching for the money.  I pulled it away from his grasping fingers and shook my head.

“When we get there,” I said with little doubt he understood the meaning even if he didn’t understand the language.

He nodded and smiled, chattering away in Spanish as he escorted me to the lead pickup.  Once I was seated, he slammed the door and ran around the hood to climb behind the wheel.  The engine wheezed to life and we were quickly rolling, a dense cloud of blue smoke hanging in the air behind us.

“Pink Pussy!”  He said excitedly, smiling as he took his hands off the wheel and mimed masturbating with both of them.

“Pink Pussy.”

I smiled back at him and nodded.  He said something else in Spanish that I didn’t have a chance in hell of understanding, then remained quiet for the remainder of the drive across Nogales.

The town isn’t large and it didn’t take us long.  Buildings were thinning out, replaced by tar paper shacks that lined the road.  Women were doing chores while children played in the dirt.  I didn’t see any men, and that was fine with me.  If someone was going to start a problem, odds were it would be a guy, not a woman who just wanted to get her work done.

I wasn’t sure what to expect, but when we rounded a curve in the dirt road I was surprised to see a relatively new building with a paved parking lot.  A massive billboard fronted the street and I was amazed when I got a good look at it.  It was a full color photo of three naked women, each in a different pose that fully exposed their genitals. 

Hell, not just exposed.  Their genitals were the focus of the camera.  Two of them were giving blow jobs, the men mostly cut out of the frame except for the important parts.  The third was smiling away as she lay on her back on top of a man who had his cock deep in her ass.  Across the top of the billboard, in six-foot high, neon pink lettering, were the words
Pink Pussy
. 

I shook my head, frankly a little shocked.  Not that I’m a prude, by any stretch of the imagination.  No, not even close.  But my travels had been mostly limited to Arizona, then basic training in Kentucky followed by deployment to the middle east.  None of these places, especially the middle east, would have ever tolerated such a public display.

Shaking my head, I pulled my eyes away from the sign and motioned for the driver to head around the side of the building.  He gave me a funny look, but did as I asked.  At the very back was the truck.  I breathed a sigh of relief that it was still there.  But then looking at it, even from a distance, I could tell why no one had taken it.  It made the rattletrap rust bucket I was riding in look like a shiny new Cadillac.

Telling the driver to stop, I handed him the twenty, thanked him in my clumsy Spanish and stepped out onto the hot asphalt.  I stood there until he drove away, looking around to make sure no one was watching.  Everything looked clear, so I walked over to the ancient Ranger and peered in the driver’s window. 

It was about what I expected.  The seat was more duct tape than fabric and springs were poking up in several places.  A battered plastic seat cover was in place for the driver, probably to keep a seat spring from doing what the guy on the billboard was doing to the girl.  Half the dash was missing, exposing metal braces and wiring.  The steering wheel wasn’t original, and appeared to be held on by only a rusty nut with some wire wrapped around it.

Stepping back, I looked over the exterior.  There was not an inch of sheet metal that wasn’t dented, creased, torn or rusting.  The back window was shattered, nothing more than a jigsaw puzzle held together with a liberal application of duct tape.  The ground was visible through several large holes in the bed where rust had eaten completely through.  At least the tires were good.  Not new, but still plenty of aggressive, off-road tread on them.

Moving to the back bumper, I put my butt against the tailgate.  Looking straight ahead, I started pacing.  Stopping at ten, I cast around until I spotted a rock that looked vaguely like Texas.  If Texas didn’t have a panhandle and was all smushed in from each side.  But it was the right rock.  When I turned it over, a small scorpion slowly crawled away, leaving a pair of silver keys embossed with the Ford oval emblem.

I walked back to the truck, looking around to make sure I still didn’t have any observers.  The key fit and I pulled the door open and took a step back.  What the fuck was that smell?  Wet, dead dog?  Maybe three-week old vomit that’s been baking in the sun?  Throw in a good healthy piss and let it heat up in a black vehicle in the sun and you’d have the sickening miasma that assaulted me.

Taking some deep breaths, I slid behind the wheel and started breathing through my mouth.  Glancing at the gear shift, I pushed in the clutch, knocked the lever into neutral and turned the ignition.  To my great surprise, the engine started easily and immediately settled into a smooth idle.  I revved it a couple of times and it responded instantly.

“Smuggler’s Truck,” I thought to myself.  “Make it look like an absolute piece of shit, but the part that counts, the drivetrain, is maintained and will get you where you need to go.”

Leaving the engine running, I stepped out and was immediately grateful for the fresh air.  Leaning in and holding my breath, I tilted the seat back forward and began searching for the hidden compartment Tim had said was there.  It took me twenty minutes of banging around and pulling panels off with a rusty screwdriver that was in the glove box, but I found what I was looking for.

Twelve packages, neatly wrapped in plastic and thoroughly taped, were crammed in to the small space.  After counting, I replaced them and hammered the panels back into place. 

Fishing my cell phone from my pocket, I pulled out the slip of paper with the number the cops had given me.  Punching it in, I held the phone to my ear and listened to it ring.

“You’d better be calling with good news, Bob-O.”

I recognized the voice as belonging to the talker from the previous evening.

“I’ve got it.  Still down south.  Where do you want it?”

“Chuichu.  Few miles south of Casa Grande.  South of Interstate 8.  Can you find that?”

“Yes.”

“Get on Indian Route 15 heading south.  One mile after you pass the turn off for Indian Route 53 you’ll see a pair of hills on the right, about a mile from the pavement.  There’s a dirt track leading to them.  We’ll be on the back side in four hours.  Don’t be late.”

He hung up without saying anything else and I shoved the phone and paper back in my pocket.

9

The truck drove as well as any vehicle I had ever driven.  Not that I’ve had many cars, but none of them had looked as bad as this one did.  The brakes were solid and quiet and the clutch was crisp.  It shifted easily as I drove out of the parking lot and onto the road back into town.  I slowed for the first of hundreds of pot holes, but the suspension had apparently been worked over as I barely felt the bump.

Both windows were down, and I was seriously considering smashing out the rear glass just to get more air flow.  Whatever they’d done to cause the smell was a stroke of genius.  If someone did decide the battered hulk was worth stealing, they’d certainly change their mind as soon as they got the first whiff of the interior.

Glad that Monica and I hadn’t stopped for breakfast, I drove slowly across Nogales.  Nearer the center of town, in what passed for a commercial district, the roads were paved.  At least I think that’s what they were.  There was something covering the powdery desert soil that resembled asphalt, but it was so rutted and crumbled that I wouldn’t have bet on it.  Outside that couple of square miles, I didn’t drive on anything that wasn’t just a bladed track. 

Fortunately, the truck handled it well.  The engine was strong and other than the odor, it wasn’t bad to drive.  Soon I left the main area of town.  Now I was on a perfectly straight and level track of dirt that was lined on both sides by shacks.  Many appeared to be nothing more than heavy cardboard cobbled together around a few boards.  Just like the other side of town leading to the whorehouse, women and children were everywhere.  The few men I saw were old, sitting in whatever shade they could find.

As I passed, the dust kicked up by the tires hung in thick clouds in the air and slowly drifted across the residents of the area.  I felt bad, knowing what it’s like to get dusted by a passing vehicle, but none of them paid any attention.  In fact, as I continued to pass through the area I began to realize that they were making an effort to not notice me. 

To not notice the truck, I realized.  They probably knew who it belonged to, or at least what it was used for, and none of them wanted to even see where it was going.  That was perfectly fine with me. 

I was nervous as hell.  Even though I’m used to working outside in the Arizona summer, sweat was pouring off of me from the thoughts going through my head.  I was carrying enough drugs to get twenty years in an American prison.  In Mexico?  A gringo driving around with a load of whatever drugs were hidden behind the seat?  I’d never see the light of day again if the Federales or Narcos took an interest in me.

 
Continuing on, I left the outermost edge of the shantytown behind.  If I was remembering right from hunting trips, there was a deep canyon coming up in about ten or fifteen miles.  I’d never been on the Mexican side of the border through it, but knew it did cut deeply across the line.  My plan was to follow it north into the US and pick up some of the lightly traveled roads that would take me to my meeting.

I just hoped the Border Patrol was either chasing some illegals or visiting their girlfriends.  Anything other than sitting there bored, waiting for some idiot to come driving along.  If I was spotted, I was fucked.  These guys have some serious desert vehicles, as well as helicopters.  I wouldn’t be slipping away if they spotted me.

The terrain remained perfectly flat for several miles, then suddenly descended sharply.  I drove through a series of switchbacks and braked to a halt when I reached the bottom.  Looking out the driver side window, to the north, I hoped the truck could negotiate the rugged terrain and soft sand that defined the canyon floor.

Shifting into neutral, I set the parking brake and hopped out.  The Ranger had four-wheel drive, but it was old and required the driver to manually lock the system.  No automatic switches here.  The hubs engaged easily, again showing the care that was taken with the vehicle’s mechanicals.  Back behind the wheel, I shifted into gear and made a left turn.

I worked my way through soft sand that had been deposited by run off from rain storms.  This only lasted a few hundred yards, then I had to slow and carefully crawl over jumbled rocks.  The Ford never missed a beat, and I made slow but steady progress.

An hour later, I reached the northern mouth of the canyon and came to a stop before exiting into the open desert of Arizona.  Shutting the engine down, I stepped out and walked fifty yards to crouch behind some boulders.  If I was the Border Patrol, I’d be sitting right here waiting. 

On the stretches of sand I’d navigated, there had been dozens, if not hundreds, of footprints.  All heading north.  No tire tracks, but this was obviously a heavily traveled corridor for illegal immigrants to sneak into the country.  The men and women of the Border Patrol would certainly know this, but I was hoping they weren’t watching too closely in the daytime.

Most illegal crossings are done under the cover of darkness.  I was counting on the day shift being lightly staffed and focusing on other border problems, leaving the cat and mouse games for the guys who worked at night.  Peering around the rocks, I was relieved to not see any of them lying in wait.